"Certainly, the conditions up there at the moment are bad for fire-fighting, and they are in property protection mode at the moment, but we are expecting those conditions to abate and allow fire-fighters to do some work up there to contain this fire," he said.

The Tasmanian Fire Service says some residents were evacuated, but only as a precaution because Glen Dhu Road is a dead-end.

Parts of Glen Dhu, Tanglewood and Collins Cap roads are cut off and the Molesworth and Collinsvale Primary schools will be closed today.

A refuge was set up at the Molesworth Community Hall yesterday.

Tracey Walker lives in Glen Dhu road and says the fire was about 200 metres away when she got home from work.

"Smoke had come through quite quickly, the wind had actually changed direction also, which then started to blow smoke up towards our house," she said.

"So all the embers and stuff were flying into the house as well, which was quite frightening."

She says she just had enough time to grab a change of clothes and her pets, which include show dogs.

"I actually have 12 dogs at home and six baby puppies so my number one priority was to get home and get them safely out. Now I'm actually with my mum, which is probably five kilometres down the road," she said.

Molesworth resident Adrian Dalton has stayed to defend his home.

"It's all coming straight through here, we've managed to stop it at the road here before it jumps the fence, but I've just noticed it's got back up into the thick virgin forest up the back there so hopefully the firies can get up in amongst the fire trails and put it out before it goes down the gully," he said.

Victoria's laws for disclosing political donations have long been criticised as among the weakest in the nation, but Premier Daniel Andrews says his proposed reforms will make the state's donations laws "the strictest donation laws in the country".